Earth in Human Hands, with David Grinspoon

Credit: NASA.

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About This Episode

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Curious about what’s happened to Earth in the Anthropocene age – and what’s going to happen in the future? It’s not all doom and gloom, as you’ll find out from our host, astrobiologist David Grinspoon, author of the new book, Earth in Human Hands – Shaping Our Planet’s Future, ProPublica science journalist and former New York Times Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin, and co-host Chuck Nice. In fact, according to some people on the extremes of the climate change debate, David and Andy are too hopeful. In this episode, rather than the demonization of climate change deniers you might expect, what you will hear is a thoughtful discussion about the Anthropocene age, i.e., the age of humanity on Earth, and how we are dealing with ourselves as a planetary force. Discover why both David and Andy think the climate change debate, and even the diversity of responses on both sides, may just be what “our global mind looks like when it’s trying to figure things out.” Learn where the term Anthropocene comes from, and why Neil deGrasse Tyson prefers the term “Anthrocene.” Explore why climate change models are far too complex to point to a single “tipping point” or point of no return, and what scientists are hoping to learn about our planet’s climate by studying Mars, Venus and even exoplanets – once we develop more powerful telescopes capable of letting us know more about them. You’ll also get the scoop on which parts of the US might be hardest hit by rising sea levels and other results of climate change, and about parts of the world that might actually benefit from global warming. Don’t miss Chuck’s shock on hearing what Andy and David think about President-Elect Trump’s Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson’s opinion that climate change is an engineering problem, or Andy’s story about the time Rush Limbaugh rhetorically told him to “…go kill himself and save the planet by dying.”